I know Dan and I agree that we prefer Gay Marriage, Domestic Partnerships and/or Civil Unions happen in the context of “the marketplace” (aka – The States) than by judicial fiat through the courts.

Therefore, I philosophically believe that the Prop 8 voters should be respected by the Supreme Court, though that would mean a further struggle in the marketplace in California to see gay marriage. Other states have accomplished it; quite quickly in fact.

Breitbart News has learned exclusively that Clint Eastwood has signed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, supporting the right of same-sex couples to marry. The brief, which will be released later this evening, has signatures from more than 100 Republican and conservative activists. It involves the case before the Supreme Court, seeking to overturn CA’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state.

Eastwood isn’t the story, folks. He’s probably always been pro-gay marriage — if not vocally. No, it is the names that previously opposed SSM, but will appear on this amicus brief.

If President Obama were serious about preventing the supposedly draconian cuts in the sequester, instead of demagoguing Republicans in campaign-style events, he wouldn’t be waiting until the after the last minute to sit down with congressional Republicans.

Barack Obama knows how to do one thing: elect Barack Obama to public office. And that’s not ‘elect Democrats.’ Or ‘elect liberals.’ Or even ‘elect people that Barack Obama likes.’ It’s just him: his team is trying pretty hard right now to figure out how to use their over-specialized skill more generally, but they don’t have much time to figure it out and the system is actually rigged against them in this case.

Perhaps, Republicans can be more effective in standing up to this Democrat if every time he attacks them, they respond by pointing out the problem and asking for his plan to fix it, in this case, out-of-control federal spending.

They might also remind Americans of Barack Obama’s promise of a “net spending cut” and pledge to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.

Our commenter Crosspatch wrote a number of very detailed and thoughtful responses, but one paragraph of this comment is worth highlighting for expressing a cogent critique of modern liberals which everyone can understand:

Many Democrats are to people what cat ladies are to cats. The cat lady can not stand the thought of those poor kitties out there all on their own in the dead of winter so she takes them in to “take care of” them. The cats end up being packed into slums as she micromanages them but the task becomes too much, requires too much overhead, and living conditions begin to deteriorate as they are in Detroit. The cat lady isn’t really doing it to help the cat because the cat would probably have a much better quality of life if she had left it alone. She is doing it to help HERSELF not feel bad. Liberals often don’t do things to actually help people so much as they do it to make themselves feel better, like they are doing something about a problem. If you try to explain to them that they are actually doing a disservice to those they are trying to help, you are treated just like any other person who points out a flaw in a “fundamentalist’s” logic. You are attacked and ostracized.

When I was quickly skimming through the many comments, I originally glossed over that paragraph, but subsequent comments by Chris H. and Bastiat Fan made me take a closer look at it.

One of the themes of Crosspatch’s comments has to do with the ways in which the leftist media and the educational establishment both set the ground rules and expectations for debate and discussion of issues to make it difficult for conservatives to respond.

One way conservatives can fight against this, it seems to me, is to generate as many powerful and accessible counter-narratives as we can to begin to change the way people view both conservative and liberal ideas.

Busy with a number of projects today, including entertaining Bruce with whom I just had a nice lunch and to whom I just showed a gas station selling a gallon of regular for over $5, but did want to remind our readers despite the CPAC dustup, many conservative institutions favor the inclusion of gay conservatives.

Shortly, after returning home (from spending my early afternoon with Bruce where CPAC came up), I caught this headline on the National Review’s homepage:

CPAC’s decision to exclude this gay conservative group is not sitting well with all movement conservatives. Daniel Foster, the National Review’s news editor, makes a strong case for inclusion:

GOProud is consistently big-C “movement” conservative on the important issues — especially on fiscal policy and the size of government, but also on social issues such as abortion. After all, GOProud was founded by a couple of Log Cabin Republicans dissatisfied with that group’s Main-Street-partnership-style centrism. This alone is a pretty good reason for their inclusion at CPAC. But arguably more interesting, and more important for a powwow that’s ostensibly about making conservative advocacy more effective, is GOProud’s lower-case conservatism.

Read the whole thing. Foster holds that “the move against GOProud does seem to be all downside.” Indeed.

Just another reminder about the broad-based conservative movement. The current organizers of CPAC don’t speak for all conservatives.

The incumbent President of the United States has decided to lay off blaming his predecessor for the nation’s sorry economic and fiscal situation and is now blaming someone else:

Facing an end of the week deadline, President Barack Obama said Monday that Congress can avert sweeping across-the-board cuts with “just a little bit of compromise,” as he sought to stick lawmakers with the blame if the budget ax falls.

And whatever these perfect strangers from Kentucky stood for, however distant they were from the causes of global minimum wage, clean energy and sustainable peace, they were still able to treat people who shared almost none of their values without contempt. We were able to do the same, and to us, that was a hugely political act.

But it is the kind of political act for which the current crop of activist groups — from the Voters Rights March to Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center — have increasingly little patience. Faced with dissenting views or even devil’s advocacy from newspaper reporters, they grow hostile and deny access. When I’ve collaborated with activists on the left, as I did recently on a Web site, I’ve found them willing to censor discussions or use ridicule when certain words make them uncomfortable. When I’ve written about them, they’ve been unhappy that I’ve focused on their personal struggles and not exclusively on the issues, and as a member of the media, I’ve endured their suspicion and scorn. Were these people ever to actually run the country, I complained loudly in the summer of 2000, while I was up in Malibu covering the Ruckus Society’s direct-action training camp, it would be a bona fide fascist dictatorship.

Although the LA Weekly article ends by reiterating the writer’s allegiance to leftist goals and ideals, she intends it as a warning to her fellow liberals and leftists that they need to learn to work and play well with others. Despite her moment of clarity, she is unable to recognize that the leftist activist class is extreme and intolerant because leftist philosophies inevitably end up there.

In other words, the ingrained tendency of the left to go too far often unsettles the willingness of individuals to continue to believe in the narrative of a beneficent and well-intentioned politics–a belief which, however unfounded, is one of the hallmarks of social liberalism. At least that has been my experience.

What have our readers observed? Were any of you political changers? Was there something about the anger, intolerance, and extremism of the leftist activist class that inspired you to question your views or, alternately, that made you more resolute in your conservative beliefs?

I have been getting some emails and commenters have written about the situation regarding GOProud & CPAC this year.

Actually, nothing has changed. The CPAC Board voted before CPAC 2012 to remove GOProud as a sponsoring organization. There has been no news since then.

The recent Twitter fury about the issue resulted from a blogger noting that Chris Hayes, MSNBC host, was invited to be on a panel by CPAC. She noted how odd it was to have a liberal commentator included, but GOProud still excluded.

Leslie Winner, executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, said she was “surprised and disappointed” by the actions of Blueprint North Carolina.

“(Z. Smith Reynolds) believes in robust debate on issues of public importance, (it) does not support attacking people,” Winner said. “We were disappointed to learn that Blueprint is advocating this strategy…

“We are taking this seriously. We are determining our options and our obligations. We will get to the bottom of it.”

The Foundation is providing $400,000 of Blueprint’s nearly $1 million budget, Winner said.

Hallie Kuperman loves to dance. But what she loves even more is sharing this passion with visitors to her social dancing club, the Century Ballroom.

Hallie purchased the vintage dancing space 16 years ago, turning it into a Seattle institution. The Century Ballroom not only teaches swing, tango and the foxtrot, it also hosts cabarets and other live performances for an eclectic crowd of all ages. The club’s trendsetting owner has become a prominent and beloved figure in the community.

Business was swinging until a surprise bill arrived from Washington’s Department of Revenue. The state agency decided to reinterpret an obscure old tax, audited the Century Ballroom, and demanded a check for $92,000.

It never ceases to amaze me that so many liberals fail to grasp the reality of the law of unintended consequences with respect to any piece of supposedly well-intentioned legislation. I use the word “liberals” here rather than “leftists” because I mean to refer not to the hard-core, doctrinaire leftists, but to the garden variety liberals who continually get fooled by the left into supporting their ill-intentioned schemes.

When I explained that the Party’s official endorsement cited Obama’s signature policy initiatives as the surest means to achieving socialism in America, and that CPUSA leaders were actively campaigning for Obama in swing states, my colleague fell silent for a moment, and then said, matter-of-factly, “It doesn’t really bother me; I guess it might bother me if Obama were endorsing the Communist Party, but if they’re endorsing him, it doesn’t matter.”

In typical fashion, the liberal here manages to convince himself that what should be obvious is really inconsequential.

But I digress. While it seems clear to me that the left’s aim in pursuing gun-control is to disarm the populace, liberals always buy into it because they believe the lie that gun-control will somehow reduce “gun-violence,” even though lawbreakers will always find ways to acquire guns.

In the current environment, for example, all the gun-control talk has created a run on guns, ammunition, and the magazines that the politicians are talking about outlawing. And the liberals are flummoxed and upset about all of the guns being sold these days. It’s a classic case of failing to understand the law of unintended consequences whenever gun-control becomes a fixation of the politicians and their agents in the media.

Of course, that is only just the beginning. Opponents of more gun-control are always quick to point out that as the measures fail to achieve their aims, the calls for more restrictions and more confiscatory legislation will only escalate. Conservatives recognize this, and leftists know that is their ultimate aim. But liberals always delude themselves into perpetuating the lies of the left.

To follow the implications of that story to its logical conclusions is to recognize that one unsuccessful gun-control bill is but the first step down a slippery slope that can lead to more and more government intervention into every aspect of our lives, yet “liberals” still manage to remain in denial about that reality.

The White House on Wednesday pushed for tens of billions of dollars in stimulus funding for decaying roads and bridges, a request dismissed by Republicans as not serious amid the broader debate over spending cuts in Washington.

The plan outlined by administration officials Wednesday calls for $50 billion in spending on highways, transit systems and airports, part of the president’s push for a wave of new government investments. Like other ideas touted in President Obama’s State of the Union address, it lacks a payment plan.

I had thought that once I found my stride writing this novel, I would start blogging once again, perhaps not at the pace I did during the election, but at least more often than once every blue moon.

And yet, finding my stride (again) as a writer of fiction has changed me in ways that I had not even anticipated when I started writing. I find that certain things, don’t bother me as once as they used to. I take them more in stride.

Except when I feel the bite of bad government policies, I don’t feel the same rage at the arrogance of the liberal elites as I normally do, those who would dictate to us how we run our own lives.

Perhaps this is because for those of a truly conservative disposition, politics is not the primary focus of our lives. By and large, we don’t see it as a source of meaning. We find meanings in other endeavors. We understand that government should serve, as Mr. Jefferson understood, to protect certain inalienable rights.

We often regret that we have to get involved in the messy business of politics to block policies which infringe upon our liberties and our ability to pursue happiness.

Dan did a post a few days ago, but I wanted to re-invite our friends in the Los Angeles area to join me and him for “Meatless Monday” by enjoying a hearty steak dinner at Outback Steakhouse in Glendale, Calif. The official event invite is here on Facebook.

And since I’m also new Vice Chair of GOProud, I’ll be talking about our new efforts at chapter development and outreach.

For those not familiar with “The Great Steak Dinner Bet,” here’s the video from CPAC 2010.

Presidents’ Day is this coming Monday, but Lincoln’s birthday was this past Tuesday, February 12th. I was traveling that day, and had the misfortune of being subjected to hearing most of the State of the Union address as I completed the last leg of that day’s journey.

As Dan and others have pointed out many times in the past, Obama is fond of comparing himself to Republican Presidents, especially Lincoln and Reagan. Perhaps it is because both Lincoln and Reagan were associated with the state of Illinois: Reagan was born there, grew up there, and went to college there, and although Lincoln didn’t move to Illinois until his 21st year, he is most associated with the state where he became a country lawyer, served in the state legislature, and represented a district in the House of Representatives.

Or perhaps Obama compares himself to Republicans because he doesn’t want to remind the public that his political views place him to the left of Clinton, Carter, and Johnson, or, for that matter, far, far to the left of Kennedy. Perhaps he simply wants to preserve the narrative about his alleged “post-partisanship” and thinks that comparing himself to Republican Presidents is one way to keep pulling the wool over the public’s eyes in that regard.

Whatever the reason, hearing him speak on Lincoln’s birthday only reminded me, once again, how far Obama falls from Lincoln’s historic presidency (despite Steven Spielberg’s and Tony Kushner’s attempts to draw such a parallel through their recent film). Not only was the speech the usual melange of the same tiresome platitudes we’ve been hearing from him over the last five years, as both Bruce and Jeff have pointed out here, it was also full of his usual partisan talking points, as he placed blame on Republicans wherever he could, and he rationalized future power-grabs by the Executive branch.

In the context of Lincoln’s birthday, though, I am less interested in the SOTU, and more interested in what Obama said on January 21st of this year. Until Bruce posted the entirety of Washington’s second inaugural last month, the second inaugural address I was most familiar with was Lincoln’s. I had read about FDR’s second inaugural address, but never felt moved to read it in its entirety, and have generally had just passing interest in the speeches delivered on the second inaugurals of the presidents who were re-elected in my lifetime. But Lincoln’s second inaugural address is anthologized in textbooks alongside the Gettysburg Address, and I have read both many times. They are both lessons in brevity, resolve and humility.

Consider, for instance, the way that Lincoln discusses the issue of slavery and the conflict between the North and the South in his second inaugural address:

Both [sides] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

These are not the words of a proud and arrogant man. These are the words of a man who is troubled by the horrible conflict which has engulfed his nation and who prays for its speedy resolution, even as he fears the terrible price that both sides in the conflict still have to pay. Lincoln’s words are even more powerful in that way that they echo, perhaps unintentionally, one of Jefferson’s most striking passages from his Notes on the State of Virginia: